Hideous Kinky
Imagine for a while you are a little girl with a hippie mother, who survives on paltry sums of money she receives from your father, who may not be her husband.
That is ‘Hideous Kinky’ in short - a book brimming with questions and new experiences. It comes with a very eye-catching yet misleading title, worth exploring for its own sake.
You move from England to Morocco, where people wear different clothes, have strange names and new magical discoveries await you at every corner. Like a bath in a Hamam where a lady scrubs you with a stone until you develop tiny beads of dirt that are washed off with a bucket of water to leave you feeling polished clean.
It is remarkable how Esther Freud has managed to capture and depict in such detail the tiny, otherwise inconspicuous oddities of little growing girls. With an equally clueless but smarter elder sister you keep guessing who your father is. Every new male friend your mother makes loves you intuitively and you build castles in the air. The book delicately captures emotion through simplicity: "Bilal was my Dad. No one denied it when I said so."
Julia, the mother, tries ingenious ideas to pool money whenever she finds time from her spiritual pursuits. The mystery around her true desires and wishes remains shrouded throughout causing some discomfort to the reader, but there is no time to dwell. The numerous characters encountered along the way, some without purpose, remain etched in mind thanks to vivid detailed descriptions.
The tale more than anything else brings home the reality that people make places. And ‘Hideous Kinky’ is a place worth visiting.
PS: The petite 300-page book will make a very good travel companion.
That is ‘Hideous Kinky’ in short - a book brimming with questions and new experiences. It comes with a very eye-catching yet misleading title, worth exploring for its own sake.
You move from England to Morocco, where people wear different clothes, have strange names and new magical discoveries await you at every corner. Like a bath in a Hamam where a lady scrubs you with a stone until you develop tiny beads of dirt that are washed off with a bucket of water to leave you feeling polished clean.
It is remarkable how Esther Freud has managed to capture and depict in such detail the tiny, otherwise inconspicuous oddities of little growing girls. With an equally clueless but smarter elder sister you keep guessing who your father is. Every new male friend your mother makes loves you intuitively and you build castles in the air. The book delicately captures emotion through simplicity: "Bilal was my Dad. No one denied it when I said so."
Julia, the mother, tries ingenious ideas to pool money whenever she finds time from her spiritual pursuits. The mystery around her true desires and wishes remains shrouded throughout causing some discomfort to the reader, but there is no time to dwell. The numerous characters encountered along the way, some without purpose, remain etched in mind thanks to vivid detailed descriptions.
The tale more than anything else brings home the reality that people make places. And ‘Hideous Kinky’ is a place worth visiting.
PS: The petite 300-page book will make a very good travel companion.
posted by Zingy at 3:47 AM
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